From Open Sustainability
Wikisourcing Sustainable Enterprises Profile
Patagonia is a sustainable business practices thought leader. If you have insight into Patagonia's operations please help complete the profile.
1. Enterprise Information
Name: Patagonia
URL: www.patagonia.com
Size: local, national, global
Headquarters location: Ventura, California, USA
Initiative contact person:
Name: Phone/email:
Related links to articles about this enterprise's work:
- Greening the supply chain and transparency [1]
- LEED certification for the distribution center [2]
- Founder Yvon Chouinard's company vision for environmental sustainability [3]
- Founder of Patagonia Yvon Chouinard's book Let My People Go Surfing[4]
- Patagonia profile in Chapter 6 of The Sustainable Company [5]
- The leadership style of new CEO Michael Crooke [6]
2. Sustainability Initiative that Caught your Attention
Please describe including if possible:
Sustainable Strategy (including the sustaining of natural, human, social, financial, and manufactured capital)
i. What did this initiative set out to accomplish, or what problem was it addressing (if you know)?
After rapid growth in the 1980's, the company's sales significantly dropped during a recession in 1991. This led to a reevaluation of the company's long-term goals and inspired Yvon Chouinard (company founder) to reshape the organizational structure and values to plan for the company to be sustained for the next 100 years.
ii. What outcomes/results did it achieve, against what measurable standard or target or goal (if you know)?
His long term vision took into account the five forms of capital mentioned above and resulted in a number of industry best practices. The company's environmental initiatives included redesigning products to reduce environmental impacts, making Patagonia one of the first major clothing companies to exclusively use organic cotton; redesign facilities to reduce environmental impacts, such as adopting LEED certification for the distribution center and using solar panels to power the company’s headquarters; creating a state of the art online tool for supply chain transparency where customers can learn about the environmental impact and sourcing information of select products; and creating a widely adopted environmental partnership organization called 1% For The Planet, where member companies provide 1% of their revenue to partnering environmental organizations.
In addition, the organizational structure and values take into account issues of sustaining human and social capital: Patagonia has created a highly successful on-site child care program at their headquarters - a model that many other companies have adopted; the company sponsors numerous outdoor trips and retreats for employees; there are no private offices in the headquarters and the layout was specifically designed to facilitate open communication; and the CEO has been known to occasionally close the office on days with good surf to allow employees to go to the beach for outdoor recreation. There is a very flat hierarchy that cultivates innovation, maximizes internal feedback channels, and fosters productive employee relationships.
The company continues to be financially sustainable, with annual revenues of $300 million, and remains a leader in outdoor equipment industry.
iii. Regardless of the results, how was the initiative received inside/outside the organization?
Though no quantifiable results are at hand, there is much evidence from the media, as well as from my personal experience interacting with employees, that Patagonia’s company culture strategy has resulted in high employee satisfaction. The company's organizational leadership and strategy models continually make headlines and their products remain respected for their high quality.
3. Why? What impresses you about this enterprise's sustainability initiative?
The manner in which the company incorporates natural, human, social, manufactured, and natural capital into strategic planning.
4. At what stage is this enterprise on the Sustainable Innovation Roadmap*?
- Viewing Compliance as Opportunity
- Making Value Chains Sustainable
- Designing Sustainable Products & Services
- Developing New Business Models
- Creating Next Practice Platforms
*Ram Nidumolu, C.K. Prahalad, and M.R.Rangaswami "Why Sustainability Is Now the Key Driver of Innovation" Harvard Business Review September 2009 pp56-64
Please indicate stage by number 1-5.
5. Summarize this Sustainable Enterprise using 3 Tags
What are 3 key words (or short phrases) to summarize the essentials of your Sustainable Enterprise Profile?
1. Sustainable long-term strategic planning
2. Pioneering best practices and innovation
3. Sustaining core values
6. Questions and or Suggestions?
If you had a chance to sit down with this enterprise's senior management what topics would you raise? Please limit to 3.
i.
ii.
iii.
7. In writing your profile what measures did you use for judging a sustainable enterprise?
My measure consisted of how well the company sustains natural, human, social, financial, and manufactured capital.
8. What underlying principles guide this enterprise in their sustainability initiatives?
Based on reading Chouinard's book and numerous articles about Patagonia, I have gained the impression that the company is guided by the value of sustaining society (as opposed to solely company profit); success of products and business operations seems to be based not only on how they meet consumer demands but how they contribute to the greater social system.
9. About the Profile Contributor
Your relationship to company profiled; Independent admirer
A link/s to tell us about you
Karl R. Smerecnik
Associate
DestinHaus LLC
www.linkedin.com/in/smerecnik
DestinHaus
10. Reader Questions & Observations
Please use this space to add observations about items that the questions above omitted and or post questions to the profile authors.
Thank you for taking time to contribute. Please visit regularly to further input as the Sustainable Enterprise Profiles collection grows.
Your suggestions for making this "Wikisourcing Sustainable Enterprise Profiles" initiative more valuable are also welcomed.
